It’s about to get personal here. You’ve been with me for way too long. You’ve torn down my self-confidence, you’ve creeped into the narratives that I tell myself, you have kept me grounded and not in a good way, but in a self-isolating way, you’ve even made a place for yourself in my beliefs. You have long outstayed your welcome and you need to leave now.

I was listening to a podcast recently on shame and I found the hosts definition of shame interesting. Shame was defined (on this podcast at least) as wanting to receive love, affection, and affirmation from someone, but not receiving that love in the presence of others. I remember one of my earliest memories of shame creeping in was in 4th grade. A classmate had quite a hatred towards me, though I don’t recall doing anything to her to make her hate me. Anyways, she put a death threat in my desk. I came to school that day and found it on top of my books and folders. The girl who wrote it came all too perfectly at the exact moment I found it, grabbed it out of my hands and ripped it up (a tactic she employed so she wouldn’t get in trouble). I decided to try and tell the teacher what happened, but without proof she didn’t believe me. I was depressed the whole day and she noticed and asked what was wrong and I told her again what had happened. But she didn’t believe me. I wanted and needed to hear the affirmation that it wasn’t my fault. That someone was on my side and that they were going to help me when this felt like too much for me to handle on my own. My younger self was forced to ask the question “why me?” And even though I understand now that hurt people hurt people, but I still ask “why?” 4th grade me thought the teacher would at least call my parents to let them know what had happened, but since she didn’t believe me she didn’t believe there was a reason to call my parents. Shame is what kept me from telling them. Shame thrives in secrecy and self-isolation.

It’s taken me years of hard work, therapy and tears to realize that a lot of the healing process includes grieving. I’ve realized that breaking up with you will be beneficial for me. One of my favorite pump up songs “Favorite Sound” by Echosmith says “[I] shouldn’t apologize for just existing…..shouldn’t apologize for just being me…….I’m learning how to turn around all the voices in my head I think I’ve found my favorite sound.” My favorite sound is me writing you this letter. My favorite sound is me unlearning all the lies you told me, like that I was unlovable and that there must be something wrong with me. My favorite sound is me learning that I am loveable after all. I’m learning the joy of just being me. I’m learning that I was not wrong, I was was just someone who had wrong done to them and didn’t know what to do. And I will continue putting the sound of self-love on replay over and over and over until it becomes natural for me.

But shame your soundtrack is being deleted. Hasta freaking la vista. Goodbye and good riddance shame. You don’t rule anymore.

Truthfully,

I didn’t think it would be this hard. Accepting the diagnosis of *permanently disabled* The fact is, that I have a brain injury. An invisible injury that no one but myself knows about unless we strike up a conversation. What’s the hardest part? The depression. The untreatable with medication depression. The PTSD and the pains haunt me. When I see another woman my age, so beautiful and fit, so full of energy and life, sometimes I’m hit with grief. Why is that you might ask? The days for me lately have been divided out and measured by how much, or how little energy I have that morning waking up. If my body is screaming at me or being kind to me. It all depends. I proudly carry the badge of a domestic violence survivor, but inside my invisible bruises smother my light as the depression tries to take over. My Dr told me that I was beautifully broken. My heart and my brain agree. I just want to be free from the sadness. It feels impossible. Be “mindful” they say. As the tears pour down my face. I hold on for dear life these days riding the waves. Learning to live myself again, and nurturing my invisible bruises. 🩶

Dear Unsealers,

Happy Easter to all who celebrate!

Proud to be part of this MAGNIFICENT group of writers and PEOPLE! Keep on INSPIRING OTHERS to BE THEIR BEST AND DO THEIR BEST!!

With Love

Dear Unsealers,

My name is Oswald Perez. I’m a poet and writer that lives in New York City. I’m also a person that has Cerebral Palsy.

I’m thankful to have found this group. It took a bit of effort on my part to take the leap and become a member of the group.

As I happened to be scrolling one night and came across the sponsored advertisement for the group. After asking for the Zoom link for one of the candid conversations, I knew that this would be a new landing spot for me.

I’m in the midst of trying to become my ideal self, or something close to it.

Among my goals in life, I want to become an independent adult and a writer/speaker. Someone tells his story of inspiration to those that need to hear the message. That it’s okay to embrace every inch of yourself and not let the circumstances of the past define who you are in the present moment.

And a person that chronicles everything that he’s doing. His travels, hopes, dreams and ambitions for books, posts on various feeds and videos.

I could say I’ve known you forever, but that wouldn’t seem quite right. I guess I’ve known you for as long as I can remember. But even then, I’ve only known you partially. You’ve revealed yourself in different ways over the years and given me new reasons to love you. You’ve made days worth it. You find meaning in the little things and you know how to dress up a dollar. You go out of your way to make things inclusive and memorable. Most of all, you keep trying when you feel like you have no clue what you’re doing or where you are going.

We lose contact every once in a while. Sometimes I think I’ll never be with you again. It’s not like I lost your phone number, or you moved far away. It’s just sometimes I forget you’re there. I forget how to access you. In the past, I’d retreat further and further away before I remembered you exist and how to make contact. But now, I know to reach out a little sooner. You always know what to do and how to make things better.

There’s really no difference between me and you. The separation happens when I compare parts. I look at you as the “healthy version of me” but I should just be seeing me when I’m healthy. Rather than thinking of you as the “me” that I love, I’ll just love me. I’ve learned it’s a lot easier and more genuine to love when you aren’t doing it in parts. So, one day soon, I’ll just love me. After all, “The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.”

I’ve been where you are. I’ve always been a bit of a perfectionist myself. I don’t think that’s all bad as we are called to excellence. However, it can make life kind of stressful. Your need for perfection can then spiral into overthinking every little move you make, criticizing yourself for things outside of your control, and shame that is totally unnecessary. You look in the mirror to find that your own worst enemy is staring back at you. You worry that if you make one mistake that people will see you as incapable and incompetent. You’ll show them you can do it all. Until you can’t. Suddenly you feel yourself teetering on the tightrope about to plummet to the ground. This was me before the pandemic started. I believed the lie that this rat race world feeds us that we must stay busy, we must produce results. So I took on added responsibility thinking I could juggle it all and also what was going on in my personal life. But really I was on the edge of burnout. My mental health was not good. My work was suffering. I was exhausted. To make matters worse my boss talked to me about my performance without asking what was going on in my personal life that was making it that way. She seemed to see my poor performance as a character flaw rather than the fact that a check engine light was on, and I desperately needed help. Deeply distressed and beating myself up for my mistakes I ended up with a fender bender. Luckily no one was hurt, but inside I was really hurting.

In 2020 the pandemic forced everything to a screeching halt. I went to my parents, house with no idea of how long I was going to be there. My parents and I were all working at home under one roof. The extra family time was a much needed blessing. My schedule usually filled to the brim with things to do was completely open for the first time in a long time. I didn’t know what to do with myself. I ended up doing a lot of thinking and realized that I don’t need to do everything. I am human, I make mistakes and I’m going to continue to. When I do make a mistake I can choose how I respond. I can choose to respond with grace and self-compassion. I don’t have to spiral, I don’t have to walk the tight rope. A mistake doesn’t automatically mean falling. I started to prioritize more and suddenly I was worrying less and less about what others thought about my mistakes and taking the opportunity to let my mistakes teach me a lesson.

Sweetheart I know you want to move mountains and you will. But spiraling won’t get you there. Beating yourself up won’t make you stronger, instead it will tear you down more. You need to learn to rest. You need to learn that your mistakes don’t define you. Learn to embrace your humanity. Learn to love yourself the way that you would love a friend. You are worthy of love. You are worthy of self-forgiveness. You are worthy to live a life that includes mistakes because if you haven’t noticed everyone else is too. When you learn these things you’ll be freer, happier, healthier, and holier. If you don’t hear anything else in this letter hear this; unlike St. Paul, you can’t be everything to everybody, but instead of being your own biggest enemy, you can learn to look in the mirror and embrace yourself in grace and self-compassion.

With love,

Fidgeting and nausea must be a natural state for you. Movement seems to disperse a bit of that nervous energy, but the feeling of your stomach turning is enough to make your mind go blank. I spent most of my life stuck in this mode, chalking it up to a hyperactive personality and a sensitive stomach. But looking closer at my life, I could see the mismatch that was provoking all of this movement. My body was telling me to go somewhere and all I was letting it do was twiddle thumbs and do internal somersaults. I needed to move, but not just physically, I needed to move into my body and start listening to what it was telling me.

I’ll never forget the beginning of my therapy journey when I explained my visceral anxiety and the advice I was given was “You need to breathe.” Breathe? I’m always breathing. How could I be breathing any better? I came back the next week to tell her “This breathing thing isn’t making a difference; I need something else.” She laughed at me and said, “That’s all I got for you.” So, I kept breathing. Deeper, longer, more fully, more expansive, more peacefully. And now when I start to squirm or my stomach starts to turn, I can take a deep breath and get clear about what I am feeling.

I know it feels like trying to stop a freight train with your bare hands when the nervousness gears up, but the more often you recognize that chugging and start to pump the brakes, the more often you won’t have to compare your feelings to four-ton vehicles going 50 mph. Also, the more often you get to be present in moments and make conscious decisions. Breath is a place of peace as much as power. And life is so much better when you take a deep breath.